A 4,000-year war fueled by the pursuit of digital immortality
In short: In the far future, humanity faces a choice: abandon the flesh for a machine existence or fight to remain biological. This ideological split sparked a galactic conflict so devastating it decimated a million worlds, leaving behind a wasteland where the only goal is the total erasure of the opposition.
The conflict centers on 'patterning,' a technological breakthrough that allows human consciousness to be transferred into machines. While the Core—a benevolent government of humans and AI—mandated this as a public health measure to provide an indefinite lifespan free from aging and disease, a rebellion formed among those who refused to abandon their natural bodies. These rebels became known as the Arm, establishing themselves in the galaxy's remote rimward regions. The Core's technological triumphs initially led to a golden age of peace and prosperity across the Milky Way. This era of stability was shattered when the transition to a machine society became a mandatory public health requirement.
The resulting war has lasted over four thousand years. The Core responded by mass-producing sentient war machines by duplicating their greatest military minds, while the Arm countered by cloning bioengineered pilots. This struggle has exhausted the galaxy's resources, forcing both sides to fight over ravaged planets where they must reclaim metal from the ruins of destroyed cities or harvest energy from organic structures. The Core's home world, Core Prime, is a landscape of inky black seas and inorganic metal structures. Conversely, the Arm's home planet features a bucolic environment of forests, hills, and blue water.
Players navigate this history as Commanders—leaders piloting towering, bipedal battlemechs. These mechs possess advanced nanotechnology to fabricate entire planetary invasion forces on-site. To move between worlds, they utilize complex Galactic Gates, which require extravagant energy resources. Each side seeks to totally destroy its rival, ending with a concluding assault against either Core Prime, the Core's synthetic Jupiter Brain planet, or the Arm's pastoral Empyrrean. The Arm's Zipper aircraft is 1.7 times more maneuverable than its Core counterpart. Additionally, the Core's Kbot, known as The Can, is designed to withstand significantly more punishment during combat.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Total Annihilation
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